International bestselling mystery thriller writer Kathy Reichs, ventures into the world of young adult fiction with the Virals series.

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International bestselling mystery thriller writer Kathy Reichs, ventures into the world of young adult fiction with the Virals series.

Virals, book one in the series, revolves around fourteen-year-old Tory Brennen and her friends, who live on Morris Island, a small community off the coast of South Carolina. Tory’s father works at the research facility on Loggerhead where the main action takes place. And kids being kids, they stumble across a grave containing the remains of a missing girl and decide to solve the mystery, no matter the danger. Throw in the mix the rescue of a sick puppy, and you have the backbone of the story.

At first I found it difficult to get going with this book, and that’s unusual for me. But after leaving it for a couple of month’s I decided to give it another try, as I received the next two books in the series as a present. At the end, it left me bemused. Okay, Kathy Reichs has a unique writing style, short, sharp and to the point, but it has more to do with the context of the story itself.

I’d be wrong to say that I didn’t like it—it is Kathy Reichs after all—even though the characters were somewhat unbelievable at times (although I loved Hi!). Tory, on the other hand, came across as mildly overbearing on occasion. I’ve never known a young girl to get her way all the time without too much of an argument or disagreement! But perhaps that’s just me?

The storyline took a good quarter of the book to get moving in my opinion, after the initial struggle however, it eventually settled into quite a good read.

Overall, not the usual Kathy Reichs, and I much prefer her books aimed at the adult market.